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LA Times Festival Of Books

AmyatLATFestBooks.jpg

This is the panel I moderated Sunday afternoon: "Memoirs: Lessons Learned," with...

Karen Stabiner
The Empty Nest: 31 Parents Tell the Truth About Relationships, Love, and Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop
Aimee Liu
Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders
Jessica Hendra
How to Cook Your Daughter: A Memoir
and Arianna Huffington
On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life

Hours before:

prepforbookfest.jpg

One very cool development for one of my panelists -- Jessica Hendra's book is being made into a movie by my friend David Bottrell, a very talented writer/director who was in the audience at my panel, and who has a very familiar face to some through his accidental side job as the creepy peeping Tom on "Boston Legal."

Attention Hollywood: They have a great star attached (not sure I'm allowed to say who, but she's hot, and a really good actress), and they just need a few more bucks in financing to put the deal together.

Posted by aalkon at April 30, 2007 8:07 PM

Comments

That second picture looks like my office after my 7 year old boy gets done with my office supplies...

Posted by: André-Tascha at April 30, 2007 8:36 AM

Somebody asked me if I was nervous. I said, "No, I'm prepared." Really makes all the difference!

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 30, 2007 8:42 AM

Your look puts me in mind of a famous stage direction, from Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit:
"Enter Madame Arcati, in barbaric jewellery".

Posted by: Stu "El Inglés" Harris at April 30, 2007 10:35 AM

I was trying for something a little more Madame Chanel, but thank you...I think!

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 30, 2007 10:52 AM

Cool! Glad it went well!

I was trying to get to the Festival but got tied up at a lunch meeting & Office space hunting.

Next year!

Posted by: RedPretzel in LA at April 30, 2007 11:21 AM

Thanks...and get tickets early next year. My session was sold out...which meant Bottrell and Lena had to get VIP passes. Life is rough!

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 30, 2007 11:51 AM

The thing that struck me in the second picture is how the scissors matched Lucy's bow.

I may need to get out more.

In the first picture, from this angle, at least, you look the most well put together of the panel. Of course.

Posted by: Kimberly at April 30, 2007 3:07 PM

Its a fricking book festival. Why should it matter how "well put the together" the panelists are?

Posted by: Todd at April 30, 2007 4:28 PM

Because we're not speaking to the blind?

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 30, 2007 4:46 PM

I think the other panelists look just fine. I would prefer to hear what they have to say than be judged for how they've dressed for the event.

I know a lot of assholes that dress well and a lot of intelligent courteous people who just don't have the time and resources to be so "well put together."

Posted by: Todd at April 30, 2007 4:58 PM

Todd, to hear what they have to say, you have to buy a ticket and come to the event.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 30, 2007 5:11 PM

I went to Festival of Books on Saturday. Had I wanted to hear what this panel had to say I would have purchased a ticket as I did for the two other panels I attended.

My comments are in response to the thought presented by Kimberly.

Posted by: Todd at April 30, 2007 5:25 PM

Todd,

I didn't say anyone looked bad, or indeed that it mattered if they did. I said Amy looked the MOST well put together. None of them looks unkempt.

That said, I would expect people speaking on a panel, representing their profession, to look presentable. I wouldn't really want my lawyer coming to court in a tank tops and flip flops, or my lifeguard at the pool in a three piece suit.

In public life one should dress appropriately to the circumstances. In private life one is free to dress however the fuck one wants.

Posted by: Kimberly at May 1, 2007 12:53 AM

In private life, I'm usually home writing in my evening dress and my tiara.

And as for "a lot of intelligent courteous people who just don't have the time and resources to be so "well put together"...

Oh, please.

My jacket cost $20 on eBay, my Michael Stars shirt was $15 on eBay, one of my two chokers of pearls I got for $1 at a garage sale and it's being held together by a kilt pin, and my Les Copains pants I got at Daffy's for $39.99, and my boots I've had since around 1993, and I get them resoled at Alex shoemaker in Santa Monica. The only expensive thing on my body is my bra, which is Empreinte, and costs half some people's car payment.

I've learned to dress by caring about style my whole life -- I get dressed as a kind of fun for myself -- and by going to France. There's really no reason to look like crap, and pretending it's a virtue is silly.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at May 1, 2007 4:12 AM

Oh, scuse me...jacket was $20 INCLUDING shipping.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at May 1, 2007 4:13 AM

So your just cheap?

Posted by: Samantha Don at May 1, 2007 8:31 AM

Samantha Don,

Do you know what connotation is (as opposed to denotation)?

Compare the connotation of these words:

cheap....inexpensive.

Ahhhhhh.....see.....?????? A little extra thought can move mountains...dicknut.

Posted by: kg at May 1, 2007 10:01 AM

...and it's "you're" not "your." At least be grammatically correct if YOUR going to try at an insult.

Posted by: kg at May 1, 2007 10:12 AM

If by cheap you mean "gets good value for her money" - the actual meaning - I doubt there would be carping.

Posted by: opit at May 1, 2007 6:35 PM

That bottom picture is charming as Hell. The dog is looking up like you've badly bungled an important subtheme, but might still be brought around before it all gets taped together.

Posted by: Crid at May 1, 2007 8:06 PM

Crid, you've done an amazing job of reading dog.

As for Samantha, who writes: "So your just cheap?"

I have a fantastic assistant, and I pay her as well as I can. Doing that necessitates being clever about buying clothes and things, and getting a $150 haircut for $32 with tip (I'm a big tipper -- it's only $20 without tip) at Supercuts by finding just the right person. Also, it's kind of fun to look fab for not a whole lot. Even if I were swimming in money, I think I would shop pretty much as I do.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at May 1, 2007 8:59 PM

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